Paging systems have undergone significant changes in the past twenty years. Early paging units were simple radio receivers that beeped upon receipt of a paging signal from a paging service. These paging units could not respond to the paging service because they were only simple receivers. Thus, the system had no way to keep track of the location of each pager and had to transmit every outgoing pager message from every transmitter in the areas where the pager was to receive coverage.
With the development of two-way pagers, which contain their own small, low-power transmitters, pagers became capable of sending signals to the paging system. Thus, by including geographically spaced-apart receivers in the paging system, the general location of a pager could be determined by measuring the strength of its signal relative to each receiver. With this advancement, simple methods for registering the locations of pagers were developed. Under one method, each pager is made to broadcast its unique serial number when it is turned on or at some other prompting. Once a paging system's receiver receives a pager's signal, it contacts a central database to record the current location of the pager. Future messages for the pager are then sent to the nearest transmitter station for broadcast. The central database also contains a service record for the pager that includes the pager's serial number as well as information manually entered by the service providers when a new pager is purchased and service is activated. The service record indicates the areas of coverage and types of service for the pager.
As the areas of use and numbers of users have expanded, a need has developed for more efficient registration methods. Having to access a central database every time a message needs to be sent, in addition to actually sending the message, utilizes excess amounts of time and paging system resources. Also, prior systems have had few, if any, effective methods for finding a lost pager or correcting similar registration errors that may be stored at various locations in a paging system.
The present invention is directed to providing a method to overcome the foregoing and other disadvantages. More specifically, the present invention is directed to an efficient method for registering new pagers and for keeping track of pagers once they are in a paging system.